


Omega Run

by ladyamesindy



Series: Commander Sian Shepard [8]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 20:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5430023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyamesindy/pseuds/ladyamesindy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Collectors are squarely in her sights, but Commander Sian Shepard has some unfinished business to attend before attempting a jump through the Omega 4 Relay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omega Run

There was an unnatural quiet suffusing the ship, though it was understandable when considering that the rest of the crew save Joker had been kidnapped by the Collectors.  Still, the depth and breadth of the silence only served to enhance the normal ship sounds, the resulting eeriness leaving the hairs on the back of the neck on end and the occasional crawling of the skin.  Simple noises like those associated with the elevator rising to Sian’s cabin from the Crew Deck grated harshly against nerves not yet wholly shot simply by recent events, but left Kaidan wondering how much more he could take.

Stepping off the lift, Kaidan focused on holding the two mugs he was carrying with his left hand so he could swipe the lock with his right.  Precarious as the action was, the door whooshing open a moment later and allowing him admittance at least gave him some peace of mind.  And, surprisingly, hope.  Hope that they would find a way to get the crew back.  Hope that they could defeat the Collectors once and for all and put an end to their activities.  Hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be something more for the both of them and they wouldn’t need to keep dancing around each other as they had been for so long ….

“Look, Ash -”  Sian’s voice carried just the slightest hint of resignation in it and for the first time since she had given him permission to come and go as he pleased into her inner sanctum, Kaidan hesitated.  

“Don’t you dare!” the familiar voice at the other end of the line threatened, harsh and firm.  “I mean it, Sian - we’re not done.  You and I have unfinished business, and I don’t intend to close it out with words at some half-assed memorial again.”

Debating briefly, Kaidan finally decided and took a couple more steps inside the cabin, pausing only when he neared the office space.  Glancing around the corner, he spotted the scratchy image of the familiar face that matched the voice, distorted by distance and whatever Cerberus protocols EDI hadn’t been able to disengage before the call went through.  

Sian snorted softly; a derisive sound, one meant to dissuade her sister-by-choice from her current path, but Kaidan also heard the soft sniffle that followed it.  

“Dammit, Sian!”

Sian laughed, a slightly strangled sound, the tears beginning to escape, rolling down her cheeks to mingle with the amusement at curving lips.  

Kaidan opted to step forward then, setting one mug to Sian’s left and moving so Ashley could see him, too.

The younger woman spotted him immediately.  “Hey, LT.  Do me a favor, ‘kay?”  Did he hear a waver in her voice as well?

Memories of their time together on the SR1 came flooding back at the familiarity, her words, her current state of ease at talking with them, and Kaidan felt a tension in his shoulders unexpectedly easing as a smile pulled at his lips.  This he held in check for the moment.  No sense in giving her a clue she’d won him over so easily, right?  “Sure thing,” he promised.

“Make sure Shepard doesn’t get all super heroic on this mission and comes back in one piece, will you?”

An gentle ache started in his chest, first near the sternum before spreading outward, broadening its coverage at the idea, but he nodded once.  How could he not when what she was asking was what he wanted, too?  “I’ll do my best,” he promised.

“Ash, I hardly need a keeper -”  

“Gotta run,” Ashley announced in a slightly hoarse tone, her own head shaking back and forth as she cut off Sian’s protest.  “Just remember you’d damned well better call as soon as you’re back!”

The connection broke abruptly, the screen filling with staticky snow before either Kaidan or Sian could respond.

“I hate when she does that,” Sian muttered, rising to her feet and grasping the steaming mug in her hand before walking around Kaidan and heading to the lower level of the cabin.  He pretended not to see the hand that rose and swiped angrily at the remnants of tears on her cheeks.

Kaidan followed after her, dropping into the seat beside her on the couch.  “You know she likes having the last word.”

Sian snorted softly.  “Pretty much, yeah.”  Sighing, she dropped her head back to rest against the top edge of the sofa.  “Always has.  Some things never change.  Thank God.”

Kaidan smiled around the brim of his mug as he took a sip.  Having grown up as an only child, he wasn’t used to behavioral patterns of siblings, but having watched Sian and Ash back on the SR1 together, he’d been given access to quite a bit of insight.

They sat in silence for a while, each to their own thoughts.  It was companionable enough - hell, it was more than companionable enough when viewed through memories of how it logically shouldn’t have happened at all.  Virmire should have ended it.  Alchera should have been the final note, wrapping it all up for good.  So much between them had been left unfinished.  Unsaid.  Unexplored.  And yet ….

Cerberus couldn’t have known of the budding relationship between them when they found him.  Or her.  They had barely acknowledged it themselves until those too few minutes on the way to Virmire.  A slip of the tongue.  The weight of worry and concern so great that it forced reassurances to escape without his consent.  But to his shock and surprise she accepted the invitation immediately.  To this day, he still was not certain who made the move first ….

_The shock that jolted through him as her lips slid so sensuously against his had him wondering if perhaps his biotics were flaring of their own accord.  It had been years since he’d lost control that badly …_

_The scent of roses tickled at his nose, distracting him for a moment.  A moment that Sian used to move in closer and take full advantage …._

He was not one to look gift horses in the mouth, as the saying went.  But despite that, Kaidan couldn’t quite escape a nagging, annoying edge of something poking at him.  Sharp, insistent, in that same area that had been aching in his chest when Ash had spoken earlier.  It wasn’t well defined - he wasn’t allowing it definite definition at any rate, but when it came right down to it, Kaidan knew well and good what it was.  The only question that remained was what to do about it.

Sitting forward, he set his mug aside on the table, hands draping across his knees, fingers interlocking.  

“How long until we reach the Omega Relay?”

Momentary distraction arrived with Sian’s question, one he’d planned ahead for with a quick side trip to speak with Joker before heading up to the cabin with their tea.  “Four hours Joker says, give or take.  Said he’d call up when we got close,” he replied automatically.  

Silence fell again afterwards, and with it, the return of more weighty concerns and decisions.  His brows narrowed and the inner debate became very real and obvious by the way his fingers began to fidget.

“Kaidan, your little black raincloud is returning.”

This time when Sian spoke, Kaidan’s breath hitched.  He was more than a little surprised by Sian’s comment and her recollection of the words she’d used back on the original _Normandy_.  It caught him completely off guard.  His head turned slightly, his eyes finding hers.  What was it he’d replied the last time …?  “I’ll try to keep the deck dry, ma’am.”

He watched her now as her smile broadened and she chuckled softly even while drawing her legs up beneath her.  She took another sip of the tea before lifting her eyes to meet his over the brim of her mug.  “You know, the last time this came up in discussion,” she pointed out casually, “the topic was unusually heavy.  Are we about to have a repeat of that?”

He gave her a dry smile as he sat back and half turned in his seat to face her more directly.  “I suppose that depends,” he replied.  

Her brow lifted in question, eyes widening with interest.  “Upon?”

The silence between them hung for a few moments, gentle at first, but with each passing second becoming heavier.  More important.  Or, maybe that was just him.  Her eyes searched his face - he watched her as she did - pausing to stare in his for a long moment, then moving on as if tracing and committing to memory every little detail of his face.  The scar at the corner of his lip.  The shape of his nose.  The dimple in his chin.

Or, perhaps, she was looking for the answer to an unspoken question.

Mentally Kaidan flipped a coin, though he already knew the outcome.  

_Heads …._

Slowly, he slid closer to Sian, reaching over and removing the mug from her hands before setting it on the table.  She, in turn, kept her eyes on his, slightly wider but not any more cautious than earlier.  “Last time,” he admitted to her quietly, his hand rising to caress her cheek, “I hesitated.”

Sian smiled, sighing softly, and nodded.  “As did I,” she reminded him.

Hand sliding just low enough to cup her jaw and tilt it slightly, he stared down in her green gaze and said firmly, “We have too much at stake this time and the probability that we won’t return -”

Her hand rose and settled lightly between them solidly against his chest.  “Don’t think like that, Kaidan,” she told him firmly.

His thumb brushed over her lower lip and he managed an acknowledging smile.  “It isn’t a matter of thinking, Sian,” he told her, “it’s plain fact.  This mission is a suicide run and you know it.”  He lowered his head towards hers until their foreheads met.  A gentle jolt where her skin met his left him breathless for a second, and the softest catch of her breath indicated she felt it too.  “My point in all this is that no matter what happens with the mission itself, I don’t want any regrets afterwards.  Not like last time.”

She made a soft, almost pained noise in the back of her throat before drawing her lip between her teeth.  “Neither do I,” she managed in a strangled sort of whisper after a moment.  Her fingers balled into a loose fist around the front of his shirt as she ran the tip of her nose along the outer edge of his.  “Stay?”

The fanning warmth from her breath across his cheek combined with the whispered request could only be answered in one way.  Turning his head just the merest fraction, his lips brushed against hers; gently at first, but with more determination once she met them full on and with her own spitfire fierceness he’d come to know from her over the years.  

The last barriers and hesitations between them now breached, there was no going back.  Kaidan fell back against the seat of the couch, pulling Sian across his lap as he did so, unwilling to leave any appreciable amount of space between them.  Sian followed, arms tangling around his neck and shoulders, knees to either side of his hips.  Time stood still; all that mattered was right before them.  Gentle but urgent touches.  Contented whispers and satisfied groans.  Sharp contrast between skin tones as bare flesh meeting, melding.  Soft sighs and breathy gasps.  Cries of desperation mixing with determined desire that in this at least they would leave no wish would be left unfulfilled.

 

~ 0 ~

 

Sian woke with a start but no clear recollection of what pulled her from such a deep state of satisfaction-filled sleep.  Rolling slowly onto her back, her eyes caught the view of the galaxy beyond the window above the bed.  A silly idea she’d thought the first time she’d spotted the sky window, but one that she now found offered a sight to match the sense of calm spreading within, which inevitably led to other, less peaceful thoughts….

 _Mindoir … Akuze … Virmire … Alchera … Omega ….  What will be today’s outcome?_ she wondered.  

It was the movement of weight at her waist that pulled Sian from her spiraling thoughts.  Head turning, she found caramel colored eyes focused intently upon her.  Smiling, she leaned towards him and pressed a light kiss to the tip of his nose.  Her smile broadened into a grin when he chuckled, just before rolling them both so he loomed easily over her, his weight supported on his forearms to either side of her.  “If I can’t have that raincloud, Sian, neither can you,” he insisted before lowering his lips to meet hers hers.

Sian groaned into the kiss, arms looping around his neck and shoulders again.  “I -” she managed after he pulled back, her eyes trying to focus on him, but in the end, she simply sighed and smiled.  “You know me too well,” she replied, owning up to the direction her thoughts had been headed.

Kaidan dropped back beside her and pulled her close to his side.  “Not well enough,” he murmured.

The burst of lightness inside her at his admission triggered a fleeting if silent prayer.  Looking over at him, she told him, “Then we will have to do something about that.  Won’t we?”

His brow arched.  “Somehow, I think a dinner date on the Citadel might have to wait awhile.”

Sian laughed softly and snuggled closer.  No, if they survived this mission, both knew their lives were already spoken for by the Alliance.  The incident in the Bahak System and her promise to Admiral Hackett guaranteed that.  “If Virmire and Alchera didn’t stop us,” she mused, “then I’ve no doubt we’ll figure something out.”

He flinched at the mention of both locations; just the slightest tic at the corner of his eyes, the softest of ripples through his body.  Sian pushed herself up onto one arm so she could look down at him, and Kaidan noticed a new look of determination taking over.  He knew that look.  Had witnessed it countless times since they’d met.  Had learned to trust the soldier behind it.  Her _Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!_ outlook on things wasn’t just an act.  It was a force of its own to be reckoned with, and just how could he argue that?  

“Commander?” Joker’s voice broke into the room.  

Groaning softly, Sian began to sit up.  Kaidan followed a moment later.  “What is it, Joker?” Sian called out, though she knew good and well what it had to be.

“Approaching the Omega Relay.  ETA twenty minutes,” the pilot responded.

“Got it.  Thanks.  EDI?”  

The AI replied instantly, “Yes, Shepard?”

“Alert the others.  We’re going to need everyone ready when we go through the Relay.”  Sian glanced over at Kaidan who was half dressed already.  She nodded at him to continue while rising to reach for her own gear.  

“Miranda will meet you on the bridge in five minutes, Shepard,” EDI returned.  “The others are readying themselves and will be on station within minutes.”

“Thanks, EDI.”

Donning the rest of her armor at a quickened pace, Sian turned towards Kaidan who was waiting by the steps.  Their eyes met and held for a long moment, but the one thing she could honestly say was that, no matter what happened from here on out, she honestly had absolutely no regrets where he was concerned.  Not this time.  She took one step up before turning back to face him, their eyes now level.  Leaning over, she kissed him quickly, fiercely, and pulled back with a satisfied grin spreading from corner to corner on her lips.  “For luck,” she told him with a sassy smile.

Kaidan chuckled before leaning in to kiss her in return, this time with more finesse and care.  “I don’t need luck,” he told her in all sincerity.  “I have you.”

Groaning, Sian turned away to climb the rest of the steps, but her hand trailed down his arm as she moved, her armored fingers tangling with his and tugging him behind.  “Laying it on pretty thick there, Alenko,” she muttered.  “Come on, let’s get to the armory then the bridge.”  The lift was waiting for her when she opened the door to the cabin and she pulled him onto it beside her.  “We’ve got some Collector ass to kick.”

Kaidan’s laughter echoed throughout the floor as the elevator door closed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> They were denied their night together before Ilos, so I decided to give them a night together on the way to the Omega Relay. Makes sense when you think about it, as Wrex might say! :)


End file.
